Jeremy de Quidt biography

Jeremy de Quidt was born in London but grew up in Essex, and has lived at various times in London again, Norwich, Oxford and near Wells in Somerset. He went to the University of East Anglia in Norwich where he studied Medieval English Literature and History.

When de Quidt was about to give up trying to be a writer he found himself filling in an hour a week at Wells Central School, telling the children stories and helping them use the library, and almost by accident ended up writing a story for them in weekly instalments. Unknown to him it was shown by a friend to the publisher, David Fickling, who liked it and in time it was that story that was published as The Toymaker.

He is now a full time writer.

"A real feathered man – leastways a life-sized wire and feather sculpture of one. A friend of ours made it years ago when she was at college, and trying to make more room in her house gave it to my daughter Alice. Alice hung it on her bedroom wall. I’d see it in the dark each night when I went in to say ‘goodnight.’ It looked so other worldly. I’d sit  on the edge of her bed and think to myself ‘there’s a story there.’ It all became wound up with my first childhood recollections of seeing something dead and wondering where the thing that had made it alive had actually gone."
Jeremy de Quidt, when asked by the Notes of Life website what gave him the inspiration for The Feathered Man.